MediaFest 25 panelists Richard Watts, Chris Whitley and Barbara Allen introduced the Student Media Map, a national database designed to organize and visualize data on college news organizations. The website is helping to collect data on the growing impact of student journalists in communities without local news.
The site, which launched on Oct. 16, tracks more than 1,100 college publications across 50 states. The goal is to show where student outlets are bridging the gap in news deserts, areas with little or no professional local coverage.
“This is breaking news for the college media world,” Allen said. “We want to make it easier for people to find and collaborate with student journalists.”
The project, created in partnership with the Student Press Law Center (SPLC), the College Media Association (CMA) and the Associated Collegiate Press (ACP), connects student reporters with professional journalists and educators who can support their work.
While the map provides a clearer picture of where student newsrooms exist, Whitley said the deeper message is about why they’re needed.
“When a local paper folds, that community has nothing,” Whitley said. “There’s a direct link between having community news and being a better citizen. People vote more, they understand local issues and they’re more engaged.”
The panel later opened for audience questions about how attendees have covered community issues or been affected by news deserts. Watts emphasized that these gaps aren’t limited to small towns.
Robert Bohler, a journalism educator at Texas Christian University, said his campus sits in a suburb of Fort Worth with about 50,000 residents and almost no local coverage.
At Pennsylvania’s Lehigh University, students Jacqueline Belkin and Samiha Islam, cover South Bethlehem, a nearby neighborhood often overlooked by local outlets.
“A lot of people on campus don’t really leave the university bubble or know much about South Bethlehem. Before joining the paper, I didn’t know much about South Bethlehem either,” Islam said. “Covering the neighborhood has made me more connected to where I live.”
Still, many student reporters provide this coverage without pay, panelists said, even as their work fills crucial gaps left by shrinking professional newsrooms.
“All of these programs are meant to be educational. That’s always the goal,” Watts said. “But they also fill a real need in our society. They’re giving communities access to accurate, local information when no one else is left to do it.”